


A Farewell Promise

by elynne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e12 In the Name of the Brother, Gen, Hospitals, Mostly Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:11:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynne/pseuds/elynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Gold pays Captain Hook a visit in the hospital, to say a temporary goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Farewell Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place immediately after Season 2, Episode 12, "In the Name of the Brother," and contains spoilers for that episode.

The pain was increasing again. Hook winced, pressing his mutilated arm against his chest, then forced himself to relax. If he called for a nurse, he would be provided with the elixir that would remove his pain--but it would also likely put him to sleep, or at the very least make him far too groggy to think clearly. And he needed to think, much more than he needed to escape the pain.

Emma's parting words echoed in his mind. His fingers ran along the chain that cuffed him to the hospital bed as he considered possibilities. He was sure he could escape the hospital, and fairly sure he could evade detection in the forest for some time. Long enough, hopefully, for him to charm some allies, and then...

Purple smoke billowed in the corner of his room and he twitched violently. Rumpelstiltskin, in this world's form of "Mr. Gold," smirked as he limped towards the bed, and Hook cursed himself for showing fear to his mortal enemy. Even as the idea crossed his mind, Rumpelstiltskin waved his hand, and the call button that would summon a nurse detached from the bed railing and flew across the room.

"Good afternoon, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin leaned on his cane, surveying Hook's injuries as the pirate struggled into his usual expression of arrogant self-confidence. "I've come to say goodbye."

Hook watched the older man warily. "Well, if you want to kill me, there's no better time than the present," he said with an attempt at a sneer. "Injured and chained to a bed--no challenge for a coward like you, eh?"

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. "Your petty insults have no power to wound me any longer, dearie. You've taken your best shot at me. Belle... may be gone to me forever." A shadow of pain flashed across Rumple's face, and Hook felt a brief surge of savage joy.

"In that first moment of loss, I would have killed you if I had been allowed, and you would have died with your vengeance complete." He was smiling again, but something flickering in his dark eyes made Hook's skin crawl. "You came so close, dearie. So close."

He leaned forward. Despite Hook's bravado, he found that he was shaking, feeling trapped in the other man's merciless stare. "You can still kill me. Go ahead." The quaver in his voice took the sting out of his taunt.

"Kill you? No, dearie. I've had time to think, y'see." As he spoke, his voice changed, from the calm cadences of Mr. Gold to the sibilant, gleeful mockery that was his trademark as the Dark One. "Killing you would be easy, but it would be too quick, and then you would be out of my grasp. Instead, I'm going to break you." He leaned forward, his eyes piercing. "I will reach inside your mind and tear out everything you have ever cared about, then make you watch as I destroy it all. I will damage your pretty body and pretty face, twist them into grotesque mockeries, and surround you with mirrors. I will flay you, peeling layers out of your brain until there is nothing left but a quivering, terrified, helpless vestige of your soul. And then, when all hope has been extinguished, when you have nothing left, I will kill you."

Hook realized that he had pressed himself back into the hospital bed, unconsciously trying to get as far away from Rumpelstiltskin as he could. The monitoring equipment by the hospital bed was signalling changes in Hook's vital signs that required urgent attention, but their electronic voices had been muted. 

"And don't think you can escape me, oh no. If you run, I will follow, with all the tools and tricks at my disposal. If you hide, I will find you. Even if you die... I will drag you back to life, clawing all the way."

Rumpelstiltskin leaned back, still smiling. "As I mentioned... I came to say goodbye. I'm taking a journey, y'see." Hook swallowed, as the other man gestured vaguely in the general direction of "somewhere else." "I'm hoping to find my son, hoping that he will be willing to listen to me, hoping for reconciliation. And I'm hoping that I can bring him back here, and maybe together we can work out some way of giving Belle back the mind and memories that you stole from her."

He leaned forward on his cane again. Out of the corner of his eye, the pirate could see that the device which was supposed to monitor his heart was flashing a frantic, silent warning.

"My hope is your hope," Rumpelstiltskin said, piercing Hook with eyes that somehow seemed to reflect rivers of burning, liquid gold. "You had best hope that I come back happy, bursting with love and forgiveness. And you'd better make sure that Belle is kept safe while I'm gone. You scratched the skin of this human disguise and woke the beast underneath, dearie." The room was growing dark, the walls fading. Rumple's voice echoed from distant shadows. "You had best hope I remember how to be human again, or the Dark One will make your suffering a legend for centuries to come."

Hook took a deep, gasping breath, and the world slammed back into sound and light. The room was suddenly full of people, none of them Rumpelstiltskin, who fussed with the machines and prodded him with needles. Weakly, Hook tried to speak, to ask what had happened, but could only heave shallow breaths as the pain in his chest gnawed into his awareness. From what he could understand of the chatter going on above him, his heart had faltered and nearly stopped. He tried to relax, but the pirate knew that his sleep would not be peaceful for a long, long time.


End file.
